Unless you've been living under a rock—or were trapped inside a giant chocolate heart—you must have seen the very Instagram-friendly, chocolate hearts designed for Kim Kardashian West's latest fragrance drop. A select number of Kimoji fragrances were given the temporary shelter of a lifetime when they were packaged in edible chocolate hearts and delivered to influencers, celebs, and media. You know the ones—they were crushed by wooden gavels in countless videos and Boomerangs.
So who was the mastermind behind Kim Kardashian's latest internet-breaking stunt? His name is Chris Ford, and he's known for his breakable creations as Executive Pastry chef at the Beverly Wilshire. We caught up with the chef to talk chocolate, working with Kim and North West, dedicated taste-tester. Find out what really went into those boxes besides 1,500 pounds of chocolate.
How did you get in touch with Kim?
I gifted her a couple of things over the last year and a half. I gifted her a Halloween skull cake that she loved and then it's been kind of my thing over the last couple of years of doing these crackable things. It started in Easter: I was doing these large crackable Easter eggs and doing Christmas trees and Christmas ornaments so over the Christmas I sent her a big wreath, Christmas tree, and ornaments and then from that she got the idea of doing the launch of her perfume so she actually reached out to us.
What was your initial reaction when you got the call from Kim?
It didn't really hit me. I think it's such a great offering of a collaboration, it kind of is amazing. I get excited really after I do something big like a big holiday or event. Initially and during, [I'm] in the zone and I just want to make sure it's perfect. For me, it's more or less the last week that was the most exciting part for me. Seeing the fruits of my labor.
How was it working with Kim?
She was great to work with! I had to say I was really surprised how into it she was because obviously being such a huge celebrity and being a new mother and all, she wears a lot of hats. She had a very clear vision of what she wanted and some things worked out, some things didn't–but she was just great.
How long did it take to construct the hearts? How much chocolate did you use?
We used roughly around 1,500 pounds of chocolate. The construction was pretty long—we were in LA for about two days. We made the first 50 for LA drops and then we went to New York. New York was easily double but we had to get it done in two days so it was long days, roughly around 15 hours each day. It's sort of like an assembly line so you do one part then you do the next part then you do the next part but it was really fun.
How did you get the hearts to taste so good? Was it important they tasted so good?
Oh, yeah, 100 percent. I feel like a lot of those maybe large-format items you would use cheaper chocolates or cheap ingredients. Kim wanted to do as large as I could go and I still wanted to keep that quality even if it was three times, four times the size so I used cacao berry chocolate. It's really just the chocolate, I can't take any credit other than using a great quality product. The spray is also cacao berry, basically the white chocolate cacao butter—we thinned it out really well—and then we used food coloring and then we sprayed it with a very traditional spray gun from Home Depot.
Did Kim taste the chocolate?
She did. I was originally gonna go with milk because that's her favorite. Coincidentally enough, I couldn't get that much chocolate in that much time with milk so we went with a bittersweet. More on the darker side and she tasted everything the Friday before we started production.
What was your favorite emoji fragrance? Did you get a cake for yourself?
No, I actually didn't get a cake, surprisingly enough. I thought about that afterwards. I actually like Ride or Die–I was wearing Ride or Die to get in the mood.
Was it painful to watch your cakes get smashed?
No, that's what it's all about. I think that's why I fell in love with that concept of cracking things open. Everybody's loved cracking the creations for the last three years that I've been doing them and I just think after Kim telling me the story of North cracking them open and how they loved it and then seeing everybody from Paris Hilton to Chrissy Teigen cracking them open, it was really fun to see.
Did North West love the chocolate?
Yeah, she loved two of the trees I gifted Kim on Christmas. Apparently, North had so much chocolate and caramel she threw up the next morning because she had so much candy. She loved it! I feel like now every birthday I have to make sure that North gets a big crackable.
Any plans to work with Kim Kardashian in the future?
No, I don't have any plans as of yet but I would love to. I know she has a lot of children now so I'm hoping there's a kid's party in my future. I just think it was a huge success and I think from the reaction from her and the communication I had with her, she was super happy so I hope that in the future there's a another collaboration.
Anything planned for baby Chicago or Kylie's new little girl?
I have thought about Kylie's baby, but nothing as of yet. I'm still getting over this one.
What's next for you?
Valentine's Day is a huge one, I'm really excited about that one. I have dreams of doing my own chocolate line, I've been working on that for the past year so hopefully this year I can launch that on my website so I can have my own individual brand outside of the Beverly Wilshire, which is great because they're supportive of that and gives me an opportunity to do something different.
